[one-shot] Languages (バカレア, Makoto/Yuki

Title: LanguagesFandom/Pairing: Bakaleya, Makoto/YukiWarning: I suppose I should warn for swearing? It's very slight imo, but if you don't swear at all… Anyway. These are Bakada students. There's swearing.Rating: PG-13Summary: Makoto's never needed to know English to understand Yuki before but he does now and it's annoying.Notes: Written from a prompt flailinginlove gave me during je100 's Trick or Drabble event, so technically this was written for that, but she's also letting me say that this is her extremely belated birthday fic. :x

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When they'd first met, it pissed him off. Really, what jerk says things in another language that he knows other people can't understand, if not to show off?

Expressing himself the best he knew how, they'd gotten into a huge fist fight over it, Yuki throwing heaps of English at him in the process to be an ass, but they just got equally bruised and bloody, no winner in sight. In the end, no longer having the strength to throw proper punches, they shoved at each other, Makoto called him a few names of his own and that was it. How they'd become best friends after that is beyond him. It's not like Yuki uses any less English than he first did, but they've become such a tight team that Makoto always knows what Yuki means anyway.

Until now.

They've just finished fighting a rival school and Makoto has no idea what Yuki just said to him, can't read the look on his face as he said it. He lets it go though and they go join the others. It's not like anything he said could be bad.

But then it keeps happening, random moments of not being able to understand what Yuki is saying and it's getting more and more frustrating. And to make things worse, Yuki lies when he asks for a translation, Makoto reading that on his face easily enough. He blows up at Yuki one day, fed up, and stalks off.

"Not that I mind your company," Tetsuya murmurs, continuing to finger through the shelf of books, "but don't you usually hang out with Yuki after school?"

"Not talking to that jerk," Makoto mutters bitterly. "He's been saying stupid things in English and I'm tired of it."

Tetsuya looks at him in surprise. "You know what he's saying?"

"NO. And that asshole knows it. Ugh!" Pissed off again just thinking about it, he clenches his fist. "Who the hell does he think he is? It's fine when he's saying mouthing off at everyone else, pretty cool even, but then he does it to me!"

"He's always said things to you in English."

Makoto glares at the floor. "But I could understand him." And really, that's what the problem is. He can't understand the person who he should understand better than anyone else.

Tetsuya looks at him for a moment, as if trying to make a decision. Finally he says, "What if he's saying things he doesn't want you to understand?"

"Well, duh. I got that already," Makoto grouses, but then he snaps around to look at Tetsuya. "Wait. You know what he's saying."

"He's pretty careful to not say anything when I'm around, but…"

Makoto grabs Tetsuya by the shoulders. "Well?!"

"I think…" he starts slowly. "I think you should probably figure it out yourself. I can help you study English if you'd like."

"Study… English…" Makoto repeats. In all honesty, he'd never really considered that as an option. English class back in junior high school had been retarded and Koba never did get them to open a textbook, but suddenly presented with the opportunity, Makoto agrees quickly and Tetsuya picks out a few books for him to look over that night.

They meet every day before school, Makoto not wanting anyone else to know. It's hard and he often complains that English really is a stupid language that no one should ever have to learn, but Tetsuya is patient and in the end, Makoto finds that it's not always an annoyance. It's actually got moments of being interesting.

He improves little by little, enjoying small successes like being able to pick out words Yuki uses to taunt their opponents, but now those moments of not understanding that had annoyed him so much are gone.

"And I don't think it has anything to do with the fact that I'm starting to get English," he tries to explain to Tetsuya one morning. "I think he's just stopped saying those things I didn't get."

"He probably didn't mean to make you mad before."

Makoto kicks at the ground. That's probably true, but still. He feels a little cheated now, having come this far and worked so hard.

"Did you want to stop?" Tetsuya asks, gesturing to the books on the table between them.

No, Makoto realizes. No, he doesn't. English is hard and stupid and waking up early to study of all things is embarrassing, but he realizes that he needs to be able to understand Yuki.

He looks at Tetsuya. "You don't mind, do you?" Makoto's not the only having to get up early.

"No. It's good practice for me too," he replies and then after a moment adds, "I'm glad you're not giving up. I'm sure Yuki would be happy that you like him so much to put in all this effort."

Makoto's face goes hot. "I'm not doing anything for him!" he sputters, but Tetsuya just points to the next section in the textbook.

He's not, Makoto continues to reassure himself. He just wants to understand what his best friend is saying, nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that at all. But the longer he says that to himself, the more he realizes that maybe he does like Yuki and oh god, maybe he should stop studying English.

Tetsuya doesn't comment on it when he doesn't show up the next morning. Nor does he say anything the next day, but Makoto wonders if Tetsuya's been coming early anyway, making him feel guilty enough to show up properly the following morning. Sure enough, there's Tetsuya and before Makoto can apologize for being such an ass, he's already opening the textbook and quizzing him on stuff they'd covered the last time.

Feelings realized, Makoto forces himself to act normally around Yuki, and thinks he's doing a pretty good job at it, until one day as they're hanging out at Makoto's place, Yuki asks him why he's acting so weird lately. Makoto tells him to shut up, he's not acting weird, willing the blood out of his face from getting caught so easily and is so distracted that he almost misses it.

"I didn't say it was a bad weird. It's actually kinda cute."

It's all in English, but Makoto stares, recognizing the look on Yuki's face and for the first time understands what it means. He leans in. "You like me?" he inquires, feeling a large amount of success when Yuki's eyes bulge and pulls back sharply.

"The hell makes you say that?"

But it's so clear now that Makoto grins. "You DO! And you just called me 'cute'. Is that the kind of stuff you were saying to me all those other times?"

Yuki's jaw drops a little. "Since when do you understand English?"

"Since I had reason to," Makoto mutters, unsure if he wants to admit everything, but then he sees how hesitant Yuki looks when he asks why Makoto isn't calling him gross. "Why would I do that? Do you have any idea how much work I put in so that I could get what you were saying?"

"How did you manage that anyway? I never saw you studying."

"Tetsuya's been tutoring me every morning before school."

There's a pause before Yuki asks, "Why would you do that?"

Makoto shrugs. "I'd gotten so use to being able to read you that it didn't matter whether or not you were saying shit in English or Japanese…. But then you started to say stuff I suddenly couldn't understand and it pissed me off."

Yuki nods. "I remember that, but you were talking to me again the next day, so I didn't bring it up."

"And you stopped saying the stuff I didn't get," Makoto says. He hesitantly puts his hand on Yuki's. "I hated not being able to understand what you were saying," he says softly, immediately embarrassed, but Yuki's eyes light up.

"Enough to learn English?" Yuki asks, clearly amused.

"Yeah… About that…" Makoto uses his free hand to punch Yuki in the shoulder. "That is for making me go through all that trouble. If you'd just been upfront about it, I wouldn't have had to study."

Instead of punching him back like he expected, Yuki looks away. "It was easier that way. I didn't know how you'd react if you knew I liked you, but keeping it completely to myself was starting to suck. Figured that if I could at least say it..."

"So you do like me," Makoto says with a grin, wanting the confirmation.

Yuki grins back. "And you like me. Well then."

"Well then," Makoto repeats just to be an ass, but Yuki only laughs, grabs him by the shirt and pulls him in for a kiss. When they come up for air, Makoto asks, "Would you have ever gotten around to telling me on your own?"

"Someday," Yuki says, chewing on his lip. "It woulda spilled out eventually. One of the other guys already knew."

"Tetsuya."

"Maya... Although it wouldn't surprise me if Tetsuya knew too," he adds. "Nothing gets by him."

Makoto nods. "He heard you say something to me. Not that he told me what it was that you said, but that's when he offered to help me learn English. He said it was something I should figure out on my own." And looking back on that now, he could see why. Tetsuya hadn't wanted to out Yuki, but figured that if Makoto cared enough to learn a whole new language, it'd prove how much Yuki meant to him. "He was really cool about it."

"Maya too," Yuki murmured. "You think the others would?"

Makoto pauses at that. Probably. They probably would be. But still… "Maybe we should take it slowly."

They decide to keep it to themselves, wanting to get used to it themselves first before making their group dynamics awkward, but not even a week has passed and Tetsuya is congratulating him and Makoto just has to laugh.

OMG, AMY, ILU AND THIS. Like, I just read this with my hands pressed to my cheeks swaying back and forth in my chair like a stupid anime character this so damn cute. Ka;sdjf;slkkdsjaf; So yeah, probably a good thing I didn't read it during class. XD;

They are such stupid boys, I love it. Why talk things out when you can just get angry and hit people? And poor Tetsuya, getting caught in the middle.

I love you characterization. And Makoto's struggles with the English language. Sneaking off to study. His reputation would never recover. XD And he is right, it is a stupid language.

Ugh, I love these two together. Why are they so awesome together?

Thank you so much! This is awesome! （╯^o^）╯︵ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

And should you suddenly want to write me more of this, please feel free. ;)

I'm glad you like. :D And if a plot bunny strikes, I would like to write them again. They were fun. Wish I could write fic with Maya or the Snowmen. Would probably help if I could even remember their characters names (besides Kaito :p)

They're really fun to write, aren't they? I'm in the middle of writing a sort of Maya/Sayuri fic but am kinda stuck on it. We will see if it ever goes anywhere. >_> For the Snowmen, I totally have a cheat sheet with all their names and the character descriptions they gave in that one interview (not that it really matters since they weren't in the movie enough to really show their characters). Such a stupid drama with such awesome characters. ♥

I love these two anyway~ but so funny Yuki saying stuff on purpose so Makoto doesn't understand, but studying in the morning! seriously, why so adorable, and I love Tetsuya being all helpful and still showing up when Makoto is too embarrassed too.